Second Shift
by Arostine
Summary: They've been meeting like this for some time now, in the half-darkness of Ryou's bedroom, at whatever ridiculous hour of the night Ryou arrives home from his job in the city. Ryou works nights and Malik works days, but in between, they have each other.


**Title: **Second Shift**  
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**Disclaimer: **Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi. I write only as a much-needed mental health break, and don't make any money off this. **  
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**Summary: **They've been meeting like this for some time now, in the half-darkness of Ryou's bedroom, at whatever ridiculous hour of the night Ryou arrives home from his job in the city. Ryou works nights and Malik works days, but for the time in between, they have each other. Angstshipping.

**Warnings: **M/M sex, although not very graphic**  
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**Ryou works nights.

That's when he can get hours, he says, and he doesn't mind the second shift: a four-o-clock start is late enough for him to sleep in as much as he'd like. And getting off at midnight isn't so bad. He's always been a night person.

Malik knows better.

Ryou used to work the day shift, back when Malik first came back to Domino. Malik visited him at work a few times (a few almost _unbearably awkward_ times) before he picked up on the fact that Ryou _really _didn't want him there. At first he thought Ryou was just embarrassed by his workplace, so he asked him out (_and the smile that lit up Ryou's face almost confirmed it, but..._)

They went on a few dates, of course, of the crinkly-suit-fancy-restaurant variety, the kind Malik chose because he could afford them, not because he particularly liked them. And the conversation was still just so..._stupidly awkward_ that Malik stopped asking. On their final date, Ryou made it clear, in actions rather than words, that he was interested in more sex and less talking.

_Because what can you say to someone who's been in your head?_

No, Ryou works nights for a number of reasons, but needing to sleep late isn't one of them. He works nights because he can walk home at midnight alone, courting the danger that he can finally _choose_ to face. He works nights because giving Malik the key to his apartment is the greatest show of trust he can think of. He works nights because once Malik held him close and whispered that white hair under the orange glow of the street-lights, against a black sky crowded with skyscrapers, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

But most of all, Ryou works nights because Malik works days.

Malik used to work all the time, back when he considered amassing a gang of mind-slaves to be something of an _entrepreneurial_ exercise. Even after his...career shift (_redemption_), he hadn't much believed in taking time off for trivial things like sleep. Not when there were two hundred newly-liberated tombkeepers, looking up to him with lost, bewildered eyes, who still trusted him as their leader, despite everything, whom he'd led up into sun, out of the dark, for the final time.

He left them, of course, once they were free. He had his own freedom to attend to. Rishid stayed behind, back in Egypt, to help them integrate within the outside world. Malik smiled for his brother. As their leader, Rishid was a tombkeeper at last. But Malik had larger plans.

Of course, they'd all culminated in working in the backroom of the museum alongside his sister, pouring over dusty translations and setting up exhibits. It's mindnumbingly dull, but it pays well, and he doesn't have to talk to anyone.

At the end of the day, they both just want..._freedom_. Even from each other.

They've been meeting like this for some time now, in the half-darkness of Ryou's bedroom, at whatever ridiculous hour of the night Ryou arrives home from his work in the city. Malik arrives first and lets himself in, turns on a light to let Ryou know he's there. He takes off his clothes and settles into Ryou's too-small bed, just waiting. He's got the timing of this arrangement down well by now. He doesn't need to wait long.

If he sits up a bit, he can see the ground from Ryou's second-story window, can see when Ryou arrives at the corner across the street. And when Ryou does arrive at the corner, his pale face illuminated by the red, then green, of the traffic light, Malik lets himself smile an excited little smile. A smile no one's seen since he left the tomb half a lifetime ago.

When Ryou opens the bedroom door, Malik doesn't even realize he's still smiling.

"How was work?" he doesn't ask, both because he knows the question would go unanswered, and because he's too busy watching Ryou strip. First his coat, then his shirt, and no matter how long they've been doing this, Malik is always so stupidly hypnotized by how pale he is, by the almost-luminescence of his skin as it shines in the dark.

"Pull the covers back, please," Ryou says, says _please _because he's so unfailingly, so ridiculously polite, that he _asks nicely _while he's stepping out of his jeans.

And Malik does it, because Ryou is the one person he takes orders from.

Ryou slides onto him, kisses him, and the hands cupping Malik's cheeks are still cold because Ryou never remembers to wear his gloves. A second later, Malik is on his stomach, and Ryou's icy hands are running down the scars on his back, tracing the patterns as if they're actually beautiful. Just for an instant, Malik is torn between the usual shame-anger-hate he feels towards his scars, and something akin to acceptance.

He voices none of this, though, because that's not what this is about.

This is about the feeling as Ryou pushes inside of him, about the way his anxieties, all his thoughts, just drift away in this sort of pleasurable haze as they move together, about the way that through it all he still feels Ryou's hands gradually warming as they roam all over his body. They're wrapped around his chest when they finish, and when they fall back to the mattress, and they stay there, holding Malik's back against Ryou's chest. Ryou's fingers draw faint patterns across Malik's chest as he holds him, and Malik thinks of all the things he'd like to say.

_I don't know what I'm doing, Ryou_, he thinks, _but this is the closest to freedom I've ever felt. I don't know what falling in love feels like, but I think it might feel like this. I don't know how to tell you this, and I don't know if you want to hear it._

_I don't know where I want to go, but I know I want to take you with me._

And even though there's so much he doesn't know, even though Ryou doesn't want to talk (_isn't ready to talk_), Malik can still imagine this going on and on. As Ryou's fingers continue to trace light circles on his chest, it seems possible. Anything seems possible.

But Malik allows himself to fall asleep without voicing this. After all, he has work in the morning.

Ryou stays awake, still holding him, still studying the curve of his neck in the half-darkness, still running pale fingers across warm bronze skin. He can hold Malik like he's never going to leave, and if he doesn't move, doesn't speak, doesn't _mess this up_...maybe he won't. He can stare like this for hours, not caring that he's still awake when the sunrise lights Malik's hair with reds and purples, with accents to the gold. He doesn't need to care how long he stays awake, just holding him, staring at him in fascination.

Because Ryou works nights.


End file.
